


















































DEVELOPMENT OF 
THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 



Airplane View of Washington, D. C., in 1929 











71st Congress, 1st Session 


House Document No. 35 


DEVELOPMENT 

OF THE 

UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN THE AUDITORIUM 
OF THE UNITED STATES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 
BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C., AT MEETINGS 
HELD TO DISCUSS THE DEVELOPMENT 
OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL 


APRIL 25'26,1929 



UNITED STATES 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
WASHINGTON :1930 



3HS 


HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION No. 10 
Submitted by Mr. Beers 

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), 
That the addresses delivered on April 25 and April 26, 1929, in the 
auditorium of the United States Chamber of Commerce Building at 
a meeting held in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose 
of discussing the development of the National Capital, be printed 
and bound, with illustrations, as a House document, and that six 
thousand five hundred additional copies be printed, of which four 
thousand copies shall be for the House, one thousand copies for the 
Senate, one thousand copies for the Committee on Public Buildings 
and Grounds of the House, and five hundred copies for the Com¬ 
mittee on Public Buildings and Grounds of the Senate. 

Adopted December 20, 1929. 


LIBrtAM OF CONGRESS 

RECEIVED 

APR 1 4 1930 

wvww of oowHtxn. 


For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. 


Price $1.25 (cloth) 






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CONTENTS 

PROCEEDINGS OF APRIL 25, 1929 


Address of— page 

Hon. Andrew W. Mellon.15 

Hon. Herbert Hoover.19 

Hon. Reed Smoot.23 

Hon. Richard N. Elliott. 31 

Milton B. Medary, Esq.. 39 


PROCEEDINGS OF APRIL 26, 1929 


Address of— 

Charles Moore, Esq. 57 

Edward H. Bennett, Esq.63 

Maj. L. E. Atkins .73 

Hon. Louis C. Cramton.81 



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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 


Airplane view of Washington, 

D. C., in 1929_ Frontispiece 

Diagram of Indian villages_ 6 

Site for the “Seat of Govern¬ 
ment” in 1792_ 7 

The L’Enfant plan of 1791_ 8 

The Ellicott plan of 1792_ 10 

Thornton’s design for the Capitol, 

1800_._ 12 

View of the Capitol after its 

destruction by fire in 1814_ 14 

View of the President’s House after 
its destruction by fire in 1814... 17 

South front of the President’s 

House in 1824_ 18 

The Capitol upon its restoration in 

1827_ 21 

The Capitol from Pennsylvania 

Avenue in 1830_ 22 

North front of the President’s 

House in 1829_ 26 

The Treasury Building in 1855_ 27 

Fort Stevens in 1864_ 28 

Monument marking the place 
where President Lincoln viewed 
the battle of Fort Stevens, 

District of Columbia_ 29 

The unfinished Washington Monu¬ 
ment in 1867_ 30 

The United States Soldiers’ Home. 35 

The Library of Congress_ 36 

The Mall, McMillan plan, 1901. . 37 

The Union Station in 1910 as 
developed under the McMillan 

plan_ 38 

The city post office, Washington, 

D. C., in 1920_ 47 

The Washington Monument from 

the Lincoln Memorial_ 48 

Airplane view of the Lincoln 

Memorial_ 49 

Airplane view of the new National 

Museum_ 50 

The Mall, showing existing condi¬ 
tions in 1928_ 51 

Washington, with studies for fur¬ 
ther development of the Mali. _ _ 54 

The plan of the Mall, showing the 
approved projects of 1928_ 55 


..J. 


Page 


The Arlington Memorial Bridge: 
Perspective of completed 

bridge_ 58 

Detail of piers and span_ 59 

View during construction_ 60 

The Department of Agriculture as 

completed in 1929_ 61 

The triangle and the Mall, show¬ 
ing proposed new buildings_ 62 


Model of the proposed Govern¬ 
ment buildings within the tri¬ 
angle bounded by Pennsylvania 


Avenue, Fifteenth Street, and 

B Street_ 67 

The triangle model, looking west.. 68 
The triangle model, Pennsylvania 
Avenue front, looking east_ 69 


The triangle model, Department of 
Commerce Building, view from 
corner of Fifteenth and B Streets. 70 
The Main Court of the triangle 
model, view from interior park, 

looking east_ 71 

Proposed plan for the municipal 
center, north side Pennsylvania 
Avenue, Third to Sixth Streets. 72 
Potomac River Parks, from Mount 
Vernon, past Washington to 

Great Falls_ 77 

Model of the proposed United 
States Supreme Court Building. 78 
Design for the new proposed office 
building, House of Representa¬ 


tives_ 79 

Proposed plan of the enlargement 

of the Capitol grounds_ 80 

Airplane view of Potomac River 

from over Great Falls_ 88 

Airplane view of Arlington Amphi¬ 
theater and the Tomb of the 

Unknown Soldier_ 89 

Airplane view of Mount Vernon 
from over the Potomac River.. 90 

Fort drive connecting Civil War 

forts encircling Washington_ 91 

Park and Planning Commission’s 
study of possible ultimate devel¬ 
opment of central area_ 92 


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Tauxanent, 


MOYAONES 


KE.Y : 

Ai VILLAGES 


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Diagram of Indian Villages 


















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Site for the “Seat of Government” in 1792 














































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Thornton’s Design for the Capitol, 1800 














































PROCEEDINGS OF APRIL 25, 1929 



i 14 * 


View of the Capitol After Its Destruction by Fire in 1814 


















THE REMAKING OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL 


ADDRESS OF 

ANDREW W. MELLON 
Secretary of the United States Treasury 

l-NIGHT history repeats itself. We are met under circum¬ 
stances almost identical with those under which a meeting was 
held 25 years ago in the old Arlington Hotel, only a short 
distance from this place. Then, as now, it was a meeting of 
those representing the Government, and it was held for the 
purpose of considering plans to make more beautiful the city 
of Washington. 

The principal speaker on that occasion was President Roosevelt. The Congress 
of the United States was represented by the speeches of Speaker Cannon and 
others; and Mr. Root, with his great eloquence, championed the cause which he 
had so much at heart and which he, himself, had done so much to advance. 

On that historic occasion the host was the American Institute of Architects. It 
is most fitting, therefore, that to-night we should have as our guests the represent¬ 
atives of that great and influential organization, to whose foresight and untiring 
efforts we owe not only the revival but the preservation and advancement of a plan 
for the orderly and systematic development of the Nation’s Capital. 

The meeting held in 1905 centered attention on the needs of Washington. At 
the same time it made certain that the future development of the city should conform 
to a balanced and comprehensive plan, based upon the spacious and dignified ideas 
of President Washington and Major L’Enfant, with such modifications as might be 
required to meet modern conditions and the city’s growth. 

Now we are engaged in trying to carry out those ideas. Conditions have reached 
a stage where economy demands that the Government’s activity should be adequately 
housed in buildings owned by the Government itself; and, in order to meet this need, 
Congress has made the necessary appropriations to begin this work and to proceed 
with certain other plans for the orderly development of the city. The responsibility 
for the condemnation and purchase of sites and the erection of most of these buildings 
has been placed by Congress on the Treasury Department and has become, therefore, 
an integral part of Treasury activities. 

15 b 








DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


The placing of these buildings involves a great responsibility, for the proper 
determination of this question will largely influence the future development of 
Washington. Before coming to a decision the Treasury obtained the advice of 
Mr. Edward H. Bennett, of Chicago, a well-known architect, whose efforts have had 
so much to do with bringing to completion the plans for beautifying his native city. 
Mr. Bennett was appointed Consulting Architect of the Treasury; and, with a small 
group of other eminent architects from different parts of the country, has given 
unstintedly of his services in arriving at a solution of this problem. 

These men have come to Washington at frequent intervals and have served without 
adequate remuneration in helping to work out a plan under which the new buildings 
shall be grouped and designed in such a way as to contribute in the greatest measure 
possible to the beauty of Washington. In evolving these plans the Treasury has 
had the cooperation of the Fine Arts Commission and its able and devoted chairman, 
Mr. Moore; with the Capital Park and Planning Commission; the Office of Public 
Buildings and Parks; and especially with those Members of the Senate and House 
of Representatives who are most directly concerned in this work and who have been 
so largely responsible for the developments now under way. 

All of these developments have been embodied in a comprehensive plan, and it is 
this plan which will be presented to you to-night. We want also to have you view 
the model which has been made of public buildings to be erected along Pennsylvania 
Avenue. This model is on view to-night in a room adjoining the one in which we 
are now and will be taken later to the Treasury, where it will be left permanently 
on exhibition for all who care to view it. 

It was to place these plans before you and also to make something in the nature 
of a visual presentation through motion pictures that have been prepared that we 
have asked this distinguished audience to come together to-night. I hope that the 
plans will meet with your approval so that we can proceed with carrying them out, 
fortified in the knowledge that we have your sanction and support. I am sure in 
advance of your deep interest, for it is a work which makes a strong appeal to everyone 
and gives us all an opportunity to do something of permanent value for the country. 

No one has taken a deeper interest in this great undertaking than has President 
Hoover. In all the things that have been done and are now under way he has given 
his counsel and support, and behind the plans which have been made for the future 
he has placed the full force of his administration. It is a great privilege to have him 
here to-night and to have the honor of announcing the President of the United 
States, who will now address you. 



















* 

















South Front of the President’s House in 1824 







































WASHINGTON, THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 


ADDRESS OF 

HERBERT HOOVER 
President of the United States 

AM GLAD that the opportunity has come to me as President 
to contribute to impulse and leadership in the improvement of 
the National Capital. This is more than merely the making 
of a beautiful city. Washington is not only the Nation’s 
Capital; it is the symbol of America. By its dignity and archi¬ 
tectural inspiration we stimulate pride in our country, we 
encourage that elevation of thought and character which comes 
from great architecture. Our Government in Washington has grown greatly 
during the past 15 years. We have a working force of nearly 70,000 employees as 
compared with 35,000 a score of years ago. 

War and economic recovery have delayed us in providing even our bare 
necessities of office space. Nearly 25,000 employees are to-day in rented buildings or 
temporary structures built during the war, which were expected to last but a year or 
two. Many of the buildings are insanitary. Above all, the departments are divided 
among scores of unworkable and scattered buildings. For instance, Agriculture is 
housed in 46 different places in the city and the Treasury in 27 places; Commerce 
in 20 places. We are paying rents and losing efficiency in sums far greater than the 
interest upon adequate buildings. Many of the buildings we occupy are an eyesore 
to the city. We have an authorized building program for, say, 18,000 employees, 
yet if we would satisfy even our present need we should have new buildings to 
accommodate more than 30,000 Government workers. 

Congress has authorized the beginning of a great program which must extend 
over many years. It is our primary duty to do more than erect offices. We must 
fit that program into the traditions and the symbolism of the Capital. Our fore¬ 
fathers had a great vision of the Capital for America, unique from its birth in its 
inspired conception, flexibility, and wonderful beauty. No one in 150 years has been 
able to improve upon it. 

The founders of the Republic also gave us a great tradition in architecture. In 
after years we have held to it in some periods and in others we have fallen sadly 












DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 

away from it. Although it is, perhaps, too early to envisage such a glorious future, 
I do hope to live to see the day when we shall remove from Washington the evidences 
of those falls from the high standards which would have been deplored by the 
founders of our Republic and have been deplored by the citizens of good taste ever 
since these transgressions. 

Probably one of the major buildings which we regret most is the State, War, 
and Navy Building. I have been vastly interested to find that the Congress of that 
day had a splendid taste, for they directed it to be the duplicate of the Treasury 
Building, but the administration of that day delivered it externally over to an 
architectural orgy. I have been lately advised that for a comparatively modest 
sum we can strip it of its function to represent the different types of architecture 
known to man and bring it back to the sound classic lines of the Treasury, as Congress 
intended. And this again points to the responsibility of the administration, for 
Congress is to-day, as then, giving generous authority and asking that we do our 
part in design and construction. 

It is the wish and the demand of the American people that our new buildings 
shall comport with the dignity of the Capital of America, that they shall meet modem 
requirements of utility, that they shall fulfill the standards of taste, that they shall 
be a lasting inspiration. In architecture it is the spiritual impulse that counts. 
These buildings should express the ideals and standards of our times; they will be 
the measure of our skill and taste by which we will be judged by our children’s 
children. 

Mr. Mellon has insisted that the great responsibility before us is not one which 
can be discharged by any one individual. It must be the product of the common 
mind of many men, devout to secure for America the vast realization of the expression 
of our Nation. And I am confident that we have within the Nation the taste, skill, 
and artistic sense to perform our task, for our architects have already given to 
America the leading place in their great art. 

It is on this national stage that the great drama of our political life has been 
played. Here were fought the political battles that tested the foundations of our 
Government. We face similar problems of our time, and here centuries hence some 
other Americans will face the great problems of their time. For our tasks and their 
tasks there is need of a daily inspiration of surroundings that suggest not only the 
traditions of the past but the greatness of the future. 


20 







{ 21 * 


The Capitol Upon Its Restoration in 1827 




































i 22 * 


The Capitol from Pennsylvania Avenue in 1830 





APPROPRIATIONS FOR PUBLIC BUILDINGS 


ADDRESS OF 
REED SMOOT 

United States Senator, and Chairman Public Buildings Commission 

HE President has told you of the great importance of the work 
on which we are engaged in building a beautiful capital city. 
Now, I want, in a very few words, to tell you of the ways and 
means by which we hope to accomplish it. 

For a quarter of a century I have had a desire and unfailing 
faith that I would see Washington, America’s Capital City, the 
most beautiful city in the world. The realization of this desire 
land. I call to mind that the late Senator Heybum and myself, 
21 years ago, thought the time had arrived to purchase the privately owned land 
in the triangle and had in mind the beginning of the erection of buildings to supply 
the needs of the Government, thus making it the center of the Nation’s activities. 
Senator Heybum exhibited drawings of a type of building he thought ought to be 
approved. 

An appropriation of $10,000,000 was asked for the purchase of the land. This vast 
sum asked for at that time was the death knell of the plan. For one, I am thankful 
it failed, for if it had succeeded we would never have had anything to compare with 
the plans now fully under way. A twenty-million appropriation in 1908 is fairly 
comparable with two hundred millions to-day, the amount that will be required to 
complete the present triangle building program. 

Congress has already authorized $75,000,000 for public buildings in the District 
of Columbia. Of this amount $50,000,000 is to be used for construction of buildings 
and $25,000,000 for the acquisition of land on which these buildings are to be erected. 
Most of this latter sum will be spent in acquiring land in the so-called triangle area, 
extending along Pennsylvania Avenue from Fifteenth Street to the Capitol and 
bounded on the south side by the Mall. The former sum of $50,000,000 will include 
a site which has already been purchased for the Supreme Court Building, facing the 
Capitol and extending along East Capitol Street, covering an area approximating 
that of the Congressional Library on the south side of the street. A commission, of 
which the Chief Justice is chairman, is now securing a design for the building. 



and faith is near at' 








DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


As regards acquiring sites, there are 23 city blocks involved; and of this number 
4 have been purchased, 9 are now in process of condemnation, and condemnation 
proceedings will be started for 6 within the next month. This leaves only 4 blocks 
yet to be appropriated for, and it is expected that shortly after the next regular session 
of Congress convenes an appropriation will be made to complete the purchase of the 
land in question. 

Now, for the buildings: Under the $50,000,000 authorization, $43,500,000 will be 
expended for construction, the balance to be expended for sites for certain of these 
projects. Some of this work is now under way. An administration building con¬ 
necting the two existing wings of the Department of Agriculture is being built at a 
cost of $2,000,000. The Agricultural Department will also have another building to 
be constructed shortly on the south side of the administration building, containing a 
number of laboratories and housing many activities now scattered in other buildings. 

An extension to the Government Printing Office will be made at a cost of 
$1,250,000. A beautiful building for the Bureau of Internal Revenue is being built 
at a cost of $10,000,000. This building will be a part of the triangle development 
and will cover the area bounded by Tenth, Twelfth, B, and C Streets NW. It is 
expected that this building will be completed in a little over two years. It will house 
all the activities of the Internal Revenue Bureau, now so widely scattered throughout 
the city. 

A building for the Department of Commerce is being erected at a cost of 
$17,500,000. It is the largest building that will be constructed in the triangle area 
and will be over 1,000 feet in length along Fifteenth Street, and will extend from the 
Mall to Pennsylvania Avenue and Fourteenth Street. 

An archives building has been authorized at a limit of cost of $8,750,000. This 
will be one of the most important buildings in the triangle group. It will house the 
archives and valuable records of the Government, which are now scattered in many 
buildings, some of which are not fireproof. 

Designs are being made for other buildings in the triangle group for the Depart¬ 
ments of Justice and Labor and the Interstate Commerce Commission and other 
independent establishments, as you will see by a model of these buildings on view in 
the adjoining room. When finally completed the triangle area will contain a most 
magnificent group of buildings. These buildings, by grouping together related 
governmental activities, will greatly add to the convenience of those doing business 
with the Government. They will also make it possible to operate the Government 
more efficiently and, in the end, more economically by putting an end to the large 
rent bill which the Government is now paying for offices to house the Departments 
of Justice, Labor, Commerce, and others. 


-* 24 *- 


ADDRESS OF REED SMOOT 


In addition to the triangle project it is expected that additional accommodations 
will be provided for the legislative branch of the Government by constructing an 
addition to the House Office Building on the south side of the Capitol at an estimated 
cost of $7,500,000, and by enlarging the Senate Office Building, thus completing the 
quadrangle of which the present building forms three sides, the cost of which is not 
established, but will probably be somewhat over $2,000,000. 

An appropriation of $4,912,414 has been authorized for completing the park 
between the Capitol and the Union Station and also carrying out the long-delayed 
plans for the development of the Mall. At the western end of the Mall the Arlington 
Memorial Bridge is now under way, and when finally completed will represent a 
total cost of $14,750,000. This will include, besides the bridge, the construction of 
a plaza west of the Lincoln Memorial, the improvement of Columbia Island in the 
Potomac, a formal terraced avenue on the Virginia side leading to Arlington Cemetery, 
and the widening of several streets in Washington to give suitable approach to the 
bridge. 

All of these plans, when carried out, will add greatly to the convenience and 
beauty of the city. They will not involve a very great outlay each year. For the 
great triangle development it has been estimated that only $11,000,000 will be 
expended this year and next year only $24,000,000. 

The plans have been carefully made and will, I believe, meet general approval. 
I am a strong believer in the necessity of carrying forward this great work in an 
orderly and systematic manner, and am confident that in so doing we will merit the 
thanks and approbation of future generations who will come here to view the work 
which we have done. 


-*25 * 







North Front of the President’s House in 1829 


















































i 28 


Fort Stevens in 1864 





Fort Stevens, District of Columbia 

(This monument marks the spot where President Lincoln viewed the battle) 









i 30 }- 


The Unfinished Washington Monument in 1867 




CONGRESS AND THE NATION’S CAPITAL 


ADDRESS OF 

RICHARD N. ELLIOTT 

Member of Congress , and Chairman House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds 



WASHINGTON, the Capital of the United States, is the only city 
in the country that is purely Federal in its character. It is 
governed by the President and the Congress, the citizens having 
no voice in its government. It is what our forefathers intended 
it to be, the home of our Federal Government, and Congress 
should make it a model city, the greatest Capital in the world. 
Congress, meeting in Philadelphia in 1790, passed an act 
removing the Capital from that city to the District of Columbia, a tract of land 
containing 100 square miles of territory which was ceded to the Federal Govern¬ 
ment by the States of Maryland and Virginia. It was located at the head of tide¬ 
water on the Potomac River as a compromise between the representatives of the 
thirteen original States. This was the first act of Congress relating to the 
Capital in its present location. The city was laid out by Maj. Pierre Charles 
L’Enfant, a French Army engineer, in accordance with the act of Congress and under 
the supervision and direction of President George Washington. The plat of the 
city could well be used by any great city planner of to-day and reflects great credit 
upon its authors. It was planned to facilitate the movement of troops through the 
city, and its broad avenues extend in every direction, making all parts of the city 
easy of access from any given point. 

While in 1790 the greed of man had not yet been felt in the destruction of 
nature’s great forests and natural parks, which God designed and created for the 
welfare, pleasure, and happiness of the people, the planners of the Capital realized 
that some day there would be great need in this city for parks and breathing places 
for its inhabitants. They provided the Mall and other parks which form the nucleus 
of the beautiful park system in the National Capital, of which we all are justly proud. 

The first buildings authorized by Congress were the Capitol, White House, and 
Land Office. After the partial destruction of the Capitol and the White House by 


31 






DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


the British Army in 1814 these buildings were rebuilt and the Capitol enlarged and 
extended. The Capitol and the White House have been enlarged from time to 
time under various acts of Congress, and the Capitol assumed its present form 
shortly before the Civil War, when the House and Senate wings were built under the 
supervision of Jefferson Davis, who was then Secretary of War. 

Since 1790 Congress has passed various laws providing for the erection of 
buildings and other improvements in the Capital, and many plans were suggested 
and adopted for its improvement and beautification, but no great forward step was 
taken in the rebuilding of the National Capital until Congress passed the public 
building law of May 25, 1926, which authorized the construction of public buildings 
in the District of Columbia to the amount of $50,000,000. 

This law was quickly followed by the triangle bill, which authorized the purchase 
of all the land bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue, Third Street, Missouri Avenue, B 
Street, and Fifteenth Street NW. The land is to be cleared of buildings and used 
for the sites for the magnificent public buildings shown on the model exhibited here 
to-night. They will be easy of access to the people who have business to contract 
with the Government, a matter that will be highly appreciated by all who have 
experienced the difficulty we have had to contend with in the widely scattered 
bureaus and departments as they are now located. For instance, the Department 
of Agriculture has been occupying space in 47 different and widely scattered rented 
buildings in the District of Columbia; the Bureau of Internal Revenue has occupied 
space in 19 buildings; and all departments of the Government have been likewise 
congested. In addition to this, the archives of the Government, many of them 
priceless, many of them records on which our glorious history rests, containing the 
records of the World War soldiers, have of necessity been kept in nonfireproof 
buildings where they have been under grave danger of destruction for many years. 
Some of the buildings authorized under the terms of the public building law of 1926 
are for the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Labor, Justice, Bureau of Internal 
Revenue, Archives Building, and additions to the Government Printing Office and 
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The passage of this act marked an epoch 
in the history of the public buildings of our country for the reason that it was the 
beginning of the first comprehensive building program adopted by our Government. 
It not only took into consideration the need for public buildings in the District of 
Columbia but provided for much-needed public buildings throughout continental 
United States and its dependencies. The Sixty-ninth and Seventieth Congresses 
will go down in history as doing more in a constructive way for the remaking of the 
National Capital and the providing of adequate public buildings throughout the 
country than all the preceding Congresses had done in this behalf. 


-i 32 b 


ADDRESS OF RICHARD N. ELLIOTT 


Our Government under the Constitution is divided into three great departments— 
the legislative, executive, and judicial. The Supreme Court has never had a satis¬ 
factory or adequate home. After the Senate wing of the Capitol was built just 
before the Civil War the old Senate Chamber was turned over to»this great court 
for a court room, and it has held its sessions in that chamber since that time. It is 
without doubt the greatest court in the world. Its decisions are felt and respected 
by all our people, most of whom will be surprised to know that the average county- 
seat court in the United States is better housed than is the Supreme Court. Under 
the terms of the public building act a new Supreme Court House will be erected on 
the block of ground north of the Congressional Library which will be in keeping 
with its dignity and importance. 

Another important act passed by Congress was the authorization of the Arlington 
Memorial Bridge, which was the dream of Andrew Jackson, President of the United 
States, who insisted that there should be a bridge of enduring granite spanning the 
broad bosom of the Potomac as a symbol of the union of the North and the South. 
Within a short time that dream will be realized in the completion of the great bridge 
now under construction; and it is a coincidence that the construction work of this 
great bridge has been done under the supervision of Lieut. Col. U. S. Grant, 3d, a 
grandson of the late Gen. U. S. Grant. A magnificent boulevard has been authorized 
connecting the west end of the Arlington Bridge with Mount Vernon, the home of 
Washington. B Street is to be widened to the width of 120 feet from the Senate 
Office Building to the Potomac River. Twenty-third Street NW. will be widened 
as far north as Washington Circle. B Street between the Government buildings and 
the Mall will be the great thoroughfare over which processions going from the National 
Capitol to Arlington Cemetery will travel. 

Last, but not least, is the act of March 4,1929, a bill for the enlarging of the Capitol 
Grounds. It authorizes the opening of a boulevard from the Columbus Monument, 
in front of the Union Station, to a point where it will intersect with Pennsylvania 
Avenue at Second Street, and it provides for the extension of the Capitol Park to 
the Union Station, and removes all the old buildings therefrom. It is said that 
the signing of the bill was the last official act of President Calvin Coolidge, who was 
a great friend of all the legislation seeking to improve and rebuild the National 
Capital. His administration will go down in history as marking the beginning of 
the great reconstructive period in the National Capital. The work of constructing 
these great buildings is placed by law in the hands of the Secretary of the Treasury. 
Secretary Mellon and his able corps of assistants have been working hard to carry 
on this great work and complete it at the earliest possible time, and they deserve 
great praise and credit for the start they have made in carrying out the mandate of 


-i 33 b 


DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


Congress. It is well to note that in this time of reconstruction of the National Capital 
we are fortunate in having as Chief Executive of the Nation a man who is a trained 
engineer and builder, one whose life has been devoted to the handling of large affairs. 
President Hoover by reason of his great ability and industry will have many construc¬ 
tive achievements to his credit at the end of his administration, and he will no doubt 
go down in history as the great builder, and the monument to his administration will 
be Washington, the finest capital in the world. 


-* 34 * 




i 35 *• 


The United States Soldiers’ Home in 1870 










The Library of Congress as Completed in 1897 






































Washington Monument. The plan also recommended the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and the removal of the railroad tracks from the 
Mall. The new Union Station, the Lincoln Memorial, and a large number of other buildings in the area have been located in general accordance with this plan. 





































































































































4 38 •> 


The Union Station in 1910 as Developed Under the McMillan Plan 













MAKING A CAPITAL CITY 


ADDRESS OF 

MILTON B. MEDARY 
Member of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission 

HE physical plan of a city should bear the same relation to the 
development of its separate elements that a constitution or 
charter bears to the development of the social and political 
life of its people. Washington and his advisers recognized 
this fact and gave us a physical plan with our Constitution. 
Had they anticipated the chaos and anarchy associated with 
the physical development of many American cities during the 
period which followed the early Republic, I am inclined to think they would 
have provided a Government agency as guardian of the physical plan of Washing¬ 
ton in much the same manner as the Supreme Court is called upon to measure the 
development of social and political institutions in terms of the Constitution. 

Such a plan must necessarily be basic and flexible enough to permit the freest 
development in accordance with the varying conditions of a constantly changing 
social order, insisting only that all individual elements of a city’s growth shall be in 
harmony with each other and with the whole. 

The value of large and farseeing planning is by no means confined to the aesthetic. 
In considering each project in the development of a city as a part of a grand purpose 
great economies result from the avoidance of overlapping interests and the consequent 
destruction of previous development by the encroachment of newer work and 
through the conveniences of use resulting from orderly arrangement of related 
interests. Each step in such a program gradually but consistently leads in the 
direction of that true simplicity in the arrangement of the city as a whole which can 
result only from a singleness of purpose behind all of its physical works. 

Without such purpose physical chaos will eventually deprive a city of much of 
its usefulness as well as its dignity. The period of artistic illiteracy which governed 
the development of Washington during the period between the influence of the 
L’Enfant plan and the plan of 1901 well illustrates this point, a notable example 
being the introduction of railroad tracks and stations in the great park designed by 



■i 39 b 







DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


L’Enfant and known as the Mall. The cost and manner of correcting this mistake 
illustrate both the lack of economy resulting from unguided development and the 
value to a city of the orderly disposition of its utilities in their true relation to a 
great basic plan. The great industries of the country never hesitate to scrap 
entire plants if badly planned, not for aesthetic reasons but as a necessary measure 
of economy of production and maintenance, and our universities, hospitals, and 
other large institutions are frequently under the same necessity. 

Huge as our country has become, and accustomed as we are to large figures, we 
are often staggered by large plans because of the ultimate cost of their realization. 
The size and cost of the ultimate realization of the city of Washington as planned 
by L’Enfant did not seem extravagant to Washington and the group of his advisers 
who dictated that plan. The infant Republic was in no position to think of its 
immediate realization, but nevertheless it was planned to be the capital of what 
Washington believed would be a great nation, and in discussing such details of the 
plan as the size of the White House he stated that the plans were being made for a 
far-distant future. 

The McMillan plan, made in 1900, is, after nearly 30 years, only partly realized. 
It would seem reasonable, therefore, to anticipate a period of 25 to 50 years in any 
comprehensive plans for the future, and in doing so they should represent the normal 
annual development multiplied by 25 or 50 without implying any increase in normal 
average expenditure. 

This much far-sight at least would be required to insure against the destruction 
in one decade of what has been built in an earlier one while at the same time paving 
the way to ultimate results not possible in individual projects. The cost of public 
works is largely a state of mind, and while we are accustomed to the costs of naval 
vessels and great reclamation works, we are not accustomed to compare the cost of 
the Capitol on the Hill, symbolizing the whole Nation, with the cost of single units 
in a naval program, or to the thought that a dozen navies have been built and 
scrapped while the Capitol has been serving the Nation, and that it stands to-day, 
as through its whole history, one of the notable buildings of the world. 

Turning for a moment to the model of the departmental buildings as exhibited 
here to-night—the line of buildings facing on B Street and continued west beyond 
the Monument toward the river—would cost much less than a line of warships of the 
same length and would outlive them by more than a century. Or, as another 
example, the cost of the two airplane carriers recently constructed would more than 
build and equip all of the buildings in the triangle. 

A National Capital or a Federal city has stood as a challenge to the American 
people ever since provision was made for it in the Constitution and since L’Enfant 


-i 40 b 


ADDRESS OF MILTON B. MED ARY 


crystallized in a definite form the vision of Washington and his associates of a city 
belonging to and typifying the whole Nation, independent of any of the States, a 
plan so farseeing that the early structures, which were planned in harmony with its 
spirit, although surrounded for years with thoughtless development, maintain their 
places as dominating elements in the original plan or in any worthy plan conception 
of to-day, and affirm the judgment of L’Enfant in fitting the proposed city to the 
topography of the site. 

An era of rapid development is the usual explanation of the lack of vision which 
characterized the development of Washington after the period of the early Republic. 
The renewed interest in the National Capital which has followed the plan of 1901 
indicates, however, that rapid development offers no excuse but rather demands 
greater vision. The plan of 1901 made it clear that what was envisioned and physi¬ 
cally begun by the founders of the Nation was the only basis upon which it can 
consistently develop into a great and beautiful Capital. 

Perhaps it was because there was no complicated group of local city interests to 
confuse the vision of its founders, and because in their minds there must have been 
a firm intention that such interests when they came should always be secondary and 
kept in their true relation to the national character of the city; that the construction 
of all the early public works was begun with the plans of L’Enfant taken for granted 
and apparently without the suspicion that they would be forgotten and ignored. 
It would seem wise for us to think of the Washington of the future as it was thought 
of by its founders, and in all public works or legislation affecting the city to have in 
mind the dignity and distinction of its ultimate character as a national city distin¬ 
guished from the great commercial cities which justly and fittingly express their 
raison d’etre, each in its own way. There should be no conflicting national and local 
interests; as the Capitol on the Hill is the Nation’s Capitol, so the city must always 
be the Nation’s city. It was founded for this purpose, and its construction nobly 
begun and its future left in faith and trust to the successors of the founders. Wash¬ 
ington is the place where it seems to me more than anywhere else all the men who 
have loved this country and planned great things for it and had visions of its greatness 
and power live to-day in the life they have put into it. 

The costs of building and maintaining a nation’s capital have been the subject 
of much controversy, and it is not my purpose to discuss the merits of the many 
suggestions which have been offered; but I believe the effect upon the character of 
the Capital of the application of certain principles demands careful consideration. 
Washington should not only be the seat of the National Government but should also 
invite as its guests the national organizations having to do with the arts and sciences 
and the cultural and spiritual elements of life. If the Capital is to become the cultural 


A 41 b 


DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


center of the Nation, the housing of such interests requires the creation and mainte¬ 
nance of streets and utilities, police and fire protection, and many other obligations 
of a city government, and it would seem as if a plan could reasonably be devised 
by which the national and local interests could be definitely segregated, permitting 
the Capital to be built as generously as it may wish of the love of a whole Nation, 
without complication with the finances of the District, reaffirming the original hope 
that Washington should never become a competitor of the commercial and industrial 
centers of the country. 

Frequent reference has been made to the L’Enfant plan, and so much has been 
said concerning it that it seems important to discuss those elements which make it 
applicable to the present time and not merely an interesting historic document. Its 
greatness lies in its simplicity and in its development to the utmost of the topography 
of the District. 

With the Capitol placed upon the hill, a great park extends westward to the river, 
thus giving the Capitol major importance for all time. The center of this park was 
planned as an open mall dominated by the dome of the Capitol. From the center 
of the dome great arterial avenues radiated in all directions, each of which led up to 
and in turn was dominated by the dome, thus radiating the influence of the Capitol 
to all parts of the city, and in turn leading all parts of the city up to the Capitol. 
The same arrangement focused upon the President’s house, which also had its own 
great park, though of lesser importance in the plan, leading southward to the Mall. 
The intersection of the great diagonal avenues offered minor focal points as ideal 
locations for memorials of the Nation’s history. Lying between these great thorough¬ 
fares, a network of smaller streets offered access to individual properties not exposed 
to the confusion of the heavier traffic on the main arteries. This is a controlling 
principle sought to-day in all modern planning and zoning regulations. 

The flexibility of the L’Enfant plan is best illustrated by the fact that many 
developments of the present day, undreamed of in L’Enfant’s time, find their best 
expression by conformity with the greater elements of his plan. As a specific 
illustration, the Department of Commerce, now building, houses one of the greatest 
activities of the Federal Government and is a structure of such great size that it 
would be a dominating element in any large city. Every apartment within this 
building has been designed to meet the requirements of the particular work which 
will be housed in it. These apartments have been assembled into a great building 
and take their relative places within it. The building itself, however, becomes 
merely a unit in a greater project known as the triangle development. The name 
“Triangle” is merely an acknowledgment of the L’Enfant plan and represents the 
triangular space lying between Pennsylvania Avenue, radiating from the Capitol 



ADDRESS OF MILTON B. MED ARY 


toward the northwest, and the boundaries of the Mall, running directly west from 
the Capitol Grounds. This larger unit in itself recognizes the greater plan and has 
been designed to create a monumental and effective separation of B Street and 
Pennsylvania Avenue at the apex of the triangle and to make a fitting closure of 
the cross vista from the Mall to the Department of Justice Building. It gives a 
fagade to Pennsylvania Avenue worthy of the importance of that thoroughfare and 
creates on B Street a part of the great frame of the Mall envisioned by L’Enfant, 
holding the city back from the great central motif in which the Nation’s tributes to 
Washington and Lincoln are enshrined as no other location, however commanding, 
could enshrine them. Imagine these same two monuments erected anywhere in the 
built-up part of the city and deprived of their reverent isolation! 

By the application of the principle that, no matter how important the project, 
it must take its place in the treatment of the whole, it has been possible to make 
every office in the proposed group of departmental buildings not only serve its own 
purpose in the most efficient way but do its part in paying homage to the great 
central motif of the city and to the majestic simplicity of the L’Enfant plan. This 
treatment points the way for the location and design of such buildings as will be 
needed in the future to the west of the Monument and for the completion of the 
frame on the south side of the Mall. 

At the present time the Mall is marred by the temporary buildings erected 
during the war. The Munitions and Navy Buildings should be removed and then- 
functions housed on the north side of B Street. They now occupy a site originally 
planted with trees, and during the 10 years since the war the balancing trees on the 
south side have grown to such size that it will be many years before a new planting 
on the north side, on the site of these buildings, can reestablish the balance necessary 
to the setting of the Lincoln Memorial. President Lincoln’s action in completing 
the dome of the Capitol during the stress of the Civil War is a significant challenge 
to the continued obstruction of the park leading up to the Capitol by these war 
structures. 

The Smithsonian group should be studied in order that its future constructions 
from time to time will ultimately give it its true relation to the L’Enfant plan, one 
of its units, the Freer Gallery, having already been so placed. 

Another interesting illustration of the multiplied values resulting from good 
planning is the proposed development of a municipal group at John Marshall Place. 
There is no more beautiful example of early republican architecture in the country 
than the District Courthouse, now somewhat lost in Judiciary Square and seen by 
the casual visitor only by accident. By the wise choice of a site and the under¬ 
standing manner of the planning and designing of the proposed structures, this 


-i 43 


DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


group, without adding anything to the bulk or cost of its buildings, will frame a 
portion of the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue, will open a splendid vista through 
to the courthouse, bringing this ancient building directly into the main plan of the 
city, and create a monumental frontage for the south side of Judiciary Square, while 
in turn the old courthouse will add its distinction to the municipal group by occupy¬ 
ing the end of its principal court, much as the Madeleine is seen when looking from 
the Place de la Concorde. 

It was for these reasons that the McMillan Commission, after an exhaustive 
study of the problems confronting the city in 1900, determined that no plan of the 
city could be devised which would insure a nobler future than that prepared by 
Major L’Enfant in collaboration with Washington and Jefferson. This commission 
reaffirmed that plan and extended it to meet the many new conditions which had 
asserted themselves, and modified it only where original opportunities had been 
permanently lost. 

Many of the proposals of the plan of 1901 for park extensions and building 
locations have not been realized, and some of them are no longer available. Other 
great assets of the Capital pointed out in that plan are still available, but may not 
long remain so. I have in mind the development of the great scenic region extending 
from Potomac Park up to and including the Great Falls of the Potomac. The lower 
portion of the river is now happily made available by the legislation creating Mount 
Vernon Boulevard. With a park development extending from this boulevard up 
to and including the falls, Washington would have a river park unrivaled by any 
of the world’s capitals. The project of the Fort Drive, connecting the ring of 
Civil War forts occupying the heights around the city, is rapidly becoming almost 
impossible of realization. 

On the other hand, much that was proposed by the report and plan of 1901 has 
been realized—some of it, notably the railroad situation, in spite of what might have 
been regarded as insurmountable obstacles. The greatness of the plan for the Mall, 
in its ultimate simple dignity, appealed to the imagination of the then president of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad and resulted in clearing the way for a realization of the 
plan not only in the development of the Mall but in the creation of a great gateway 
to the city in the form of the Union Station and plaza as now constructed and the 
development of the land from the station to the Capitol as now authorized. 

The extension of the Mall and the location of the Lincoln Memorial represent 
additions to the original plan of elements unknown at the time of its creation, while 
the Memorial Bridge, connecting the heart of the city with the memories of the 
Nation’s dead at Arlington, completes the greater central motif of the plan of 1901 
now approaching realization. The Grant and Meade memorials in Union Plaza 


444 }- 


ADDRESS OF MILTON B. MED ARY 


insure the development of the head of the Mall as planned and the removal of the 
temporary war buildings will make possible the opening of the Mall from the Capitol 
to the Monument. From the Monument to the Lincoln Memorial the plan has been 
realized and the Arlington Bridge is well under construction. The Washington 
Monument gardens remain to be treated as a part of the Mall scheme and of the 
intersection of the White House axis with that of the Mall. It had been hoped that 
this might be a project inaugurated in connection with Washington's two hundredth 
birthday. 

B Street north was planned as a great ceremonial street, over which corteges 
might pass from the dome of the Capitol to the Arlington National Cemetery. This 
also has been provided for and should be realized in the near future. 

The proposal that the gardens of the Mall should include buildings of the museum 
type has been partly realized by the location of the National Museum and the Freer 
Gallery. 

The proposal that a legislative group should be created around Capitol Square, 
and an executive group about Lafayette Square has been partly realized in the 
creation of the Senate and House Office Buildings and the proposed additional 
House Office Building. The Supreme Court has also been authorized in the location 
proposed. Rock Creek Park has been enlarged and extended, Potomac Park largely 
realized, and work on the Anacostia Park begun. All of these projects have 
taken their places as elements of one great plan and would have lost much of their 
significance if treated as unrelated units like the Interior Department Building. 

The buildings of the early Republic were models of good taste, sound design, 
and beauty of mass, proportion, and detail. These buildings represented a standard 
unsurpassed in any of the private or semipublic work throughout the country. 
Jefferson’s interest in architecture is historic and his doctrine of the obligation of the 
Government to set an example in the arts of design governed the early development 
of the National Capital and should find expression to-day in all the works of the 
Federal Government. 

In addition to the obligation of the Federal and District Governments, the 
obligation to maintain an appropriate character of the city extends to owners of 
private property. In this connection we learn of another of the many examples 
of President Washington’s wisdom and vision. In the original terms governing the 
building of the Capital he made the design and materials of construction of private 
structures subject to such regulations as might be thought necessary to insure their 
appropriateness. Unhappily, this control has long since been relinquished, but it 
is a matter for congratulation that the legislation recently proposed for reestab¬ 
lishment of such control has received the almost unanimous approval of the citizens 


i 45 b 


DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


of Washington, and it is to be hoped that before long such legislation may be 
enacted into law. 

Our national forests and parks witness our faith that the beauty of woodland 
and meadow are as necessary to a wholesome national life as their material products. 
The building of our National Capital should witness the same faith. 

In closing, let me again repeat and leave with you the statement that no city 
can have dignity, beauty, and distinction, or be a great city in the best sense of the 
word unless its every element is an appropriate part of a greater whole. 

The plan of 1901 has never been officially adopted; its intrinsic merit has given 
it force and carried conviction. Since 1901 the National Commission of Fine Arts 
has been created, and more recently the National Capital Park and Planning Com¬ 
mission. These two agencies have been governed in their advice and decisions on all 
individual projects by the relation such projects bear to the city as one great unit. 


-* 46 *- 



i 47 * 


The City Post Office, Washington, D. C., in 1920 








































Courtesy of the United States Army Air Corps (View from the Lincoln Memorial) 

The Washington Monument 


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ORIGIN OF THE PLAN OF 1901 


ADDRESS OF 

CHARLES MOORE 
Chairman of the National Commission of Fine Arts 

)-NIGHT the past rises before me as a dream. Last night I 
listened to the powerful Secretary Mellon take the executive 
responsibility in formulating and carrying out plans for the 
greatest group of public buildings ever constructed at one time 
in the history of the world. Then President Hoover placed 
behind the project the force of his office and his personality. 
Senator Smoot and Representative Elliott told of securing 
the abundant legislation from the Congress inspired by their patriotic appeals. As 
I listened to these pagans my memory went back over the 27 years to that snowy 
afternoon of January 15, 1902, when, at the Corcoran Gallery, Senator McMillan, 
on behalf of the Committee on the District of Columbia, revealed the plan of 1901 
to President Roosevelt and his Cabinet, notably to Secretaries John Hay and Elihu 
Root, all three of whom became its aggressive and effective supporters, and by 
their official acts drove the firm pegs that fastened that plan for the ages to come. 

Through the bewildering fogs of indifference, over the treacherous shoals of 
misunderstanding, amid the sharp reefs of opposition, the staunch plan of 1901 has 
been steered into its appointed harbor of realization, there to discharge its cargo of 
benefits and blessings. 

Later in the evening you shall see on the screen the achievements of a quarter 
century; and also goals for future striving; for so long as the Nation lives its Capital 
never will be finished. What you will not see depicted are the struggles, often 
heart breaking struggles, that marked every one of these now lauded triumphs. 
Those conflicts are now swallowed up in victory. 

Time fails me to name the noble host who have come forward in time of peril 
to do battle for the unity, the dignity, the beauty of the Capital of the United States. 

There is fascination in the fray—something akin to the lure of the crusaders to 
rescue the Holy City from the infidel. It means thought and time and patience and 
rebuffs and misrepresentation of motives, but it is worth the sacrifice. 

It may be only fancy on my part, but I suspect strongly that no future triumphs 
possible to national finance are so alluring or stimulating or satisfying to Mr. Mellon 
as is the quest on which he is now embarked—the quest of good order and beauty 
made incarnate in the National Capital. 

57 










{ 58 J*- 

































Arlington Memorial Bridge 

(Detail of piers and span) 



























































60 


The Arlington Memorial Bridge 

(View during construction) 
















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THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CAPITAL 


ADDRESS OF 

EDWARD H. BENNETT 
of the Architectural Consultants, Treasury Department 

AM to speak about the development of Washington, with 
special reference to the areas in which the new departmental 
and other Government buildings will be placed. This area, 
roughly speaking, lies between Pennsylvania Avenue and Mary¬ 
land Avenue, the Capitol, and the Monument. I shall refer 
most specifically in my remarks to the area now known as the 
“Triangle,” between Pennsylvania Avenue and B Street, and, 
since this whole subject has been so splendidly covered in the speech of the Secretary 
of the Treasury recently at Pittsburgh, I shall quote in places from his statement. 

It is obvious at the start that this, although an element in the plan of Washington, 
is a very important one in the composition of its plan, and particularly of the plan 
of the future Washington. I should like to emphasize at the start the orderly 
relationship of the plan of this great section of land to that of the whole Mall. 

“Congress has made the necessary appropriation to initiate this work and to 
carry out the most important features of that long-neglected plan of Washington 
and L’Enfant for the development of the city. The responsibility for carrying out 
this plan, by the purchase of sites and the erection of buildings, was placed by 
Congress on the Secretary of the Treasury and has become, therefore, an integral 
part of Treasury activities.” 

The present gathering meets in a sense to pay a tribute to order, as I see it, a 
human order, the product of centuries of civilization as expressed in the thoughts of 
men and the works of their hands. It is not the order of nature so far as one can see. 
That we may realize by taking a trip out into the cosmos under the guidance of a 
great scientist like Jeans, Eddington, or our own Milliken. We encounter nebulae, 
galactic clusters, solar systems, myriad masses of suns, and so-called cosmic dust, 
into the infinite. But spirals, whorls, everywhere! No tangible arrangement as 
recognized by the cultivated intelligence of the human being. 

One returns with a sense of relief to considerations of order as related to the 
human mind, expressed in its architectural works, and with joy if we can see the 


Chairman 



"i 63 







DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


beauty of this order and its rhythm. It is an order more nearly related to that 
natural to the smaller expressions of the creation as evidenced by the structures of 
crystals, plant life, and animal life, the compositions of which all relate to a simple 
plan in which there are dominant and subordinate elements. 

We are this evening to get a glimpse of the beauty of Washington in its past, 
present, and future. To do that we must first see and appreciate the underlying 
system or order of its great plan. 

An architectural plan! We may well rejoice that the original plan was made. 
Suppose, for example, there had been no plan of L’Enfant and General Washington. 
It might easily have been the case, as has been the fate of most other great capitals 
early founded, whose plans have been later rectified, and as in the case of Paris, 
made superb. Most cities have grown from a congerie of huts, evolved more or less 
according to the necessities of the situation as controlled by the growing intelligence 
of the inhabitants. But in the case of Washington enough great precedent had been 
established—a conscious idea of city planning existed in Europe and very distinctly 
in the early days of the United States. 

The orderly mind of the great Washington saw the necessity of planning ahead 
of the actual needs and he must have seen the possible beauty of a city planned on 
formal lines—formal, or perhaps more correctly, regular lines. It was essentially a 
formal age. No doubt life pulsated just as keenly in humanity as to-day, but it 
seemed more disciplined and, in its social contacts, ordered. Hence the ordered and 
rhythmic expression of the architecture of the day, and hence, added to the great 
new outlook in life on a vast continent, the potentiality of which was becoming 
apparent, the instinctive, if not conscious aim to lay foundations in an orderly and 
comprehensive manner. Hence, the Washington of the past. 

The Washington of the present is the expression of the early plan of 1790, stimu¬ 
lated and corrected by the great plan of the Park Commission of 1901, but as yet 
incomplete in its execution. 

The Washington of the future, based on that which has gone before, must be the 
result of our efforts of to-day. Let alone, it would end in chaos, as has been demon¬ 
strated by some of the attempts ignorantly proposed in violation of the original 
plan. Given meager support, the final result will be no better than it is to-day, but 
given great and concentrated attention and enthusiastic support by the Nation 
through its representatives and that collection of splendid men who are giving their 
time freely in its interest, officially and unofficially, it will become superb. 

That is why to-night we are looking at the plan of Washington, and I hope, with 
the keenest appreciation of the fact that there was the original plan of the Capital. 
The perspective we have, the past experience of civilization centering on the original 




ADDRESS OF EDWARD H. BENNETT 


plan, its renewal in the plan of 1901, and to-day substantial expansion of that plan, 
an expansion which is also a consolidation. 

Through all this development there have been great personalities involved. 
Most of them are known to you in history. It is my personal desire to acknowledge 
our good fortune in that the work of to-day has received not only the support of our 
leading Executive but an important part of it has been under the direction of the 
man who, having had the power to help the realization, had also the vision and desire 
to do so. I allude, of course, to our great Secretary Mellon. 

I hope what I have said will not seem too far afield, because I think it is so 
important that we should realize that this great group of departmental buildings to 
which I refer in general outline is so strongly related to the general composition of 
the plan of Washington. The main axis of the Triangle group is parallel to the 
Mall, not yet completed, stretching from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. The 
L’Enfant plan did not have compositions lateral to the Mall, although they might 
well have been incorporated even in that day, as that would have resembled an 
arrangement of the great eighteenth century French plans, from which the plan of 
Washington was really evolved. The main axis of the Triangle plan has this further 
justification in precedent. It is traversed by a series of great axes in extension of 
existing streets. All this can be seen on the plans and diagrams in the moving 
pictures. 

Important as is this group of the Triangle, it must be remembered that similar 
developments, though not so extensive, are proposed for the south side of the Mall, 
and in order to complete the picture of this great composition, which will slowly be 
realized, one must include the planning of the Capitol approach from the Union 
Station, including the new park area to the north of the Capitol and the magnificent 
approach from the gateway of the city by the Union Station to the head of the Mall. 
These plans, if carried out, founded as they are on a great and substantial ideal, 
should measure up to the requirements of the Capital of this great country. 

In the speech of Secretary Mellon, he said: 

It is intended to carry through, as rapidly as possible, the most pressing needs as regards 
housing of Government departments and activities. These will include a new and larger building 
for the increased activities of the Department of Commerce, a Supreme Court building, a building 
for the Bureau of Internal Revenue, an archives building, a building for the Department of 
Agriculture, still another for the Department of Labor, and several others besides. One of these 
buildings, that for the Supreme Court, will be placed on Capitol Hill; but, as regards the others, 
advantage will be taken of this opportunity to group them together in such a way as to contribute 
in the greatest measure possible to the beauty of Washington. 

The general principle has been established that no large departmental buildings are to be 
placed in the Mall, as was at first proposed, but that the Mall is to be reserved for park purposes 
and as a site for buildings of a museumlike character. 


-1 65 b 


DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


Departmental buildings are to be placed along the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue from the 
Treasury to the Capitol. In addition to facing on Pennsylvania Avenue, these buildings will face 
also on a grand boulevard, which is to be cut through the city, bordering the Mall and stretching 
from the Capitol to the new Memorial Bridge on the Potomac near the base of the Lincoln 
Memorial. It is intended the buildings, while having each a separate and distinctive architectural 
treatment, shall be of harmonious design and grouped around two large interior courts or plazas 
somewhat after the arrangement of the Louvre in Paris. 

A uniform comer height has been observed, although the architecture is varied. 
The ground contains 70 acres, and it is upward of 3,000 feet in length on B Street. 
There are upward of 1,000,000 square feet in the Commerce Building alone. The 
plazas are actually three in number; that on Twelfth Street, the circular one, being 
in a sense the pivot of the composition. In it we have proposed a great commemo¬ 
rative column. The vistas will extend from this circular plaza through into the 
other plazas, and especially into the great plaza, which, in turn, opens through an 
arched way onto Pennsylvania Avenue and toward the Mall, where it has been 
suggested shall be placed the National Museum of Art. The vital element binding 
the entire group is the connection between the two larger plazas. A happy solution 
adjusted to the scale of both has been found, crowned by a pavilion giving variety 
to the silhouette of the group. 

Again Secretary Mellon said: 

It is easy to see what the effect will be. As one proceeds down Pennsylvania Avenue toward 
the Capitol, on the south side will be a succession of beautiful and harmonious buildings, all of a 
design in keeping with the semiclassical tradition so well established in Washington. On the north 
side vistas will be opened up, so that groups of buildings, such as the beautiful District of Columbia 
Courthouse, on John Marshall Place, shall be brought into the general plan of Pennsylvania Avenue. 
At the same time the Mall will present the spectacle of a great park bordered on one side by the new 
boulevard lined with beautiful buildings, a wide parkway of greensward with its four rows of trees, 
its drives and walks, statues, and reflecting pools, all arranged in such a way that long vistas will 
be opened up for views of the Capitol in one direction and of the Washington Monument and 
Lincoln Memorial in the other. 

To realize the force of this axial arrangement one must see it after dusk. Sounds 
of the activities of the city are heard in the distance, but the Mall, with its three 
great structures—the Capitol, the Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial, aglow 
and reflected in the pools—is silent and conveys a sense of strength; the strength 
and confidence of a nation. 


-* 66 *- 



i 67 £••• 


(View from Fifteenth Street, looking east) 

Model of the Proposed Government Buildings Within the Triangle Bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue, 

Fifteenth Street, and B Street 

















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The Triangle Model 














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The Triangle Model, Department of Commerce Building 














i 71 b 


The Main Court of the Triangle Model 































■i 72 * 



THE MUNICIPAL CENTER 


ADDRESS OF 

LAYSON E. ATKINS 

Major, TJ. S. A., and Assistant Engineer Commissioner of the District of Columbia 

HE completion of the municipal center of the city of Washington 
will give to the world a more adequate expression of Washing¬ 
ton as a municipality. As the Federal development of the 
triangle will express the growth and importance of the Federal 
Government, so the municipal center will express the dignity 
and importance of Washington as a city. These two groups 
of buildings will form a magnificent nucleus for the new and 
greater Washington of the future. The present District Building, constructed in 
1908, has for some time been too small to accommodate the various executive 
departments of our city government. When this structure was erected it was 
expected that future expansion would be provided by building an addition on the 
square to the south of the present building, which would be connected by bridges 
over D Street. The execution of the plans of the Federal Government for a monu¬ 
mental group of buildings to house the different governmental departments south 
of Pennsylvania Avenue not only precludes the possibility of constructing this 
addition but also requires the replacement of the present District Building by a 
new structure in harmony with the general development of the Federal triangle. 
Therefore it was necessary for District officials to find a new location on which to 
erect buildings to properly accommodate the functions of the city government. 

A committee was appointed March 12, 1927, to study the situation and to 
recommend a new location. After a careful study, it was finally decided to locate 
on both sides of John Marshall Place (Four-and-one-half Street), north of Penn¬ 
sylvania Avenue, and to provide for practically all departments of the District 
government in one group of buildings. 

Bad as is the need for additional space for the executive departments of the city 
government, it is even more imperative that provisions be made at once for the 
police court, the municipal court, the juvenile court, and the recorder of deeds, 
which are now housed in quarters wholly inadequate and unsuited for their purposes. 

The city has in the present District Building a very valuable asset. This should 
be recognized and credit allowed by the Federal Government in granting the 

~*73 b 








DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


appropriations for the new municipal center. The area of the ground on which the 
building stands is 46,000 square feet. As a conservative estimate the land is worth 
$30 per square foot, giving a total value for the land of approximately $1,380,000. 

The cost of the present building, when built in 1908, was $1,970,000. In the 
meantime building costs have more than doubled. If built to-day, the estimated 
value is about $4,000,000, giving a total value for land and building of $5,300,000. 
Approximately this sum should be credited to the municipal center by the Federal 
Government. 

The proposed site for the new municipal center faces on the south Pennsylvania 
Avenue from Third to Sixth Street; on the west Sixth Street; on the north Louisiana 
Avenue, D Street, and Indiana Avenue; on the east Third Street. This comprises 
four squares, two on either side of John Marshall Place, which forms the north and 
south axis of the group. The difference in level between Pennsylvania Avenue and 
D Street, directly in front of the District Supreme Court Building, is 33 feet. 
Approximately midway between these two levels will be placed a great court 280 
feet in width by 500 feet in length. The approaches to the court from Pennsylvania 
Avenue will be by a series of steps. Other flights of steps will be placed at the 
north end from the court level to D Street. The court will be surrounded with 
an arcade giving direct access to the various parts of the building, offering shelter 
in inclement weather, and a shady passageway during the hot summer months. 
The court will be treated as a great garden with trees and flowers and a large pool 
in the center. 

The architecture of the building on Pennsylvania Avenue will harmonize with 
the Federal buildings on the south side of the Avenue, carrying practically the same 
belt courses and cornice lines. Due to the difference in elevation of the street, the 
north front, facing the District Supreme Court Building, will harmonize in scale 
and style with the architecture of that building. 

The District Supreme Court Building, located at the head of John Marshall Place, 
is one of the most charming and beautiful relics of early Washington. It was designed 
in 1820 by George Hadfield, an English architect, for use as a city hall. Hadfield 
came to this country in 1795 to assist Doctor Thornton, who was at that time in 
charge of the building of the United States Capitol. 

The cornerstone of this building was laid August 22, 1820, and it is interesting to 
note the following from the mayor’s proclamation on this occasion: 

An edifice devoted to municipal purposes, to be the seat of legislation and of the administration 
of justice for this metropolis when it will have reached its destined populousness and * * * to 

be erected on a scale worthy of the uses for which it is intended. * * * Also to be constructed 

with a view to durability which will extend beyond the age of any of the living, not one of whom 


■i 74 b 


ADDRESS OF LAY SON E. ATKINS 

will ever witness the recurrence of such an event as the laying of the foundation of this fabric. On 
behalf of the commissioners appointed to erect this hall I therefore invite you to witness a ceremony 
so rare in its occurrence that it will be an era in our history, and withal so interesting to all who 
take an interest in the welfare of the city founded by the departed Washington. 

The truth of this prophecy has been borne out, and it is most fitting that our 
proposed municipal center should have the Supreme Court Building as its central 
motif. We thus return to the early city hall to develop our plans for a splendid 
civic center for the future. 

The estimated cost of acquiring the four squares in this site is six and one-half 
million dollars. It is proposed to purchase all of the site at the earliest possible date 
and to proceed with the erection of a building on the northwest square, bounded by 
John Marshall Place, C Street, Sixth Street, and Louisiana Avenue, to accommodate 
the three courts and the recorder of deeds. 

What are the advantages of the site selected and the establishment thereon of a 
group of municipal buildings which will provide accommodations for all of the city’s 
departments? 

In my opinion they are as follows: 

First. Low cost of land. 

The site is located in what is now one of the least-desirable sections of the city, 
and can be bought at a very reasonable price. There are very few expensive buildings 
to purchase. 

Second. Convenience of location. 

The city departments would be conveniently located with reference to the various 
governmental departments and the Capitol, so that business could be carried on with 
the maximum of efficiency and ease. 

Third. Economy of building costs. 

The centralization of the various functions of the District government in one group 
of buildings tends toward a lower cost of construction than would be possible with 
the erection of separate buildings at different locations. 

Fourth. Economy of administration and operation. 

Administration and control would be more direct and efficient in a closely knit 
organization than in different buildings widely separated. Likewise the operation 
and maintenance would be less costly and more efficient. 

Fifth. Expresses importance of city government. 

In a group of important buildings the civic life of the city would be exemplified 
and the city government, as distinguished from the Federal Government, would find 
adequate and proper expression. 


-i 75 b 


DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


Sixth. A logical location in harmony with the Federal improvement program. 

This location will serve as a dignified and harmonious link between the Federal 
buildings south of Pennsylvania Avenue, Judiciary Square to the north, and the 
Capitol Plaza development to the east. It will also be a big step in the development 
of the proper treatment of the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue. 

A bill authorizing the development of these four squares as a municipal center 
was drafted by the District Commissioners and submitted to the Budget Bureau 
during the last session of Congress. When transmitted to Congress by the Budget 
Bureau the bill was changed to cover only two squares. Through the able support 
of Mr. Underhill and Mr. Simmons in the House of Representatives and of Senator 
Smoot in the Senate both of these houses amended the bill to authorize the purchase 
of the full four squares. 

Requests for appropriations to purchase the land will be made in our next appro¬ 
priation act, and it is expected that this splendid group of buildings will begin to 
take definite form by the erection of the courts building in the near future. 

In conclusion, the municipal center will form a vital part in the Federal develop¬ 
ment of Pennsylvania Avenue and in the beautification of Washington. The city 
will do its part to carry on the great work begun by Washington, Jefferson, and 
L’Enfant to establish on the Potomac the most beautiful and impressive Capital 
City in the world. 


■i 76 b 





COLUMBIA 


POTOMAC RJVER- PARJCS 

WASHINGTON REGION 

From Mount Vernon, past the city of Washington 
T o Great Falls 


NATIONAL CAPITAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION 


CEMETERIES 


licut. col. o s grant sro, executive ic disbursing off-icer 

MAJOR CARET M. BROWN, ENGINEER 
CHARLES W. ELIOT 2ND. CITY PLANNER 

1928 


-LEGEND- 


Kggjgj PARKS 8c PUBLIC GROUNDS 
| PROPOSEO PARKS 
fy/.'-'.j PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS 
| PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 
I PROPOSED PUBLIC GROUNDS 


Potomac River Parks, from Mount Vernon, Past Washington to Great Falls 

77 *••• 


























Model of the Proposed United States Supreme Court Building 












i 79 > 


Design for the New Proposed Office Building, United States House of Representatives 





















Proposed Plan of the Enlargement of the Capitol Grounds 


80 *••• 
























OUR NATIONAL CAPITAL 


ADDRESS OF 

LOUIS C. CRAMTON 
Member of Congress from Michigan 

HE development of the National Capital, to which the Federal 
Government is now definitely committed, along lines so com¬ 
prehensive and far-reaching, so in harmony with the plans of 
Washington and L’Enfant, well deserves to be brought vividly 
to the knowledge of the Congress, the residents of the Capital 
City, and the people of the Nation, as our great Secretary of 
the Treasury is bringing it in this series of meetings. The 
hope of George Washington, the dream of the Nation, that this Capital City be 
the most beautiful city in the world, nears realization. But the dream is more 
than that. 

“This is more than the making of a beautiful city,” last night said President 
Hoover in this hall. “Washington is not only the Nation’s Capital; it is the symbol 
of America. By its dignity and architectural inspiration we stimulate pride in our 
country, we encourage the elevation of thought and character which comes from 
great architecture.” So great an advance in so important a national program 
deserves to be known and understood of the Nation. 

With fortunate and characteristic vision Washington located the new Capital 
where nature was most charming and gave the great city-to-be a splendid back¬ 
ground. Then he brought the young French engineer, Major L’Enfant, to plan 
with Jefferson and him its development. Now the tomb of L’Enfant, on the brow 
of Arlington, overlooks all this marvelous fruition of his planning, while his name 
is imperishable as long as America stands. So wisely did they plan, that through 
all our history the development of this Capital, now grown from a vision to a city 
of more than half a million people, is tested by the L’Enfant plan, our great successes 
in harmony with it, our tragedies of failure when we have departed from it in design 
or in location. 

L’Enfant planned the rectilinear arrangement of streets, with diagonal avenues 
radiating from Capitol and White House, and with circles at the resultant inter¬ 
sections of more than two thoroughfares. Contributing so much to the beauty of 

-i 81 b 









DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


the city, these avenues and circles are of the greatest present-day importance in the 
handling of a traffic far heavier and far more speedy than any of the horse age could 
have dreamed of. 

NATIONAL CAPITAL IDEA DOMINANT IN THE CITY PLAN 

L’Enfant planned for the location of all public buildings in appropriate archi¬ 
tectural settings, grouped along a beautiful park, the Mall, connecting Capitol and 
White House. This being a city created to serve as the National Capital, that 
purpose is dominant in the L’Enfant plan. It should ever be so in the planning for 
this Capital City. The city, holding an unrivaled position as the National Capital, 
never should seek industrial supremacy. To do so would endanger its certain - 
prestige without grasping the industrial mirage. Keeping predominant always the 
National Capital purpose, this will certainly become a city possessing unrivaled 
charm and interest, with a minimum of that which would detract. 

L’ENFANT PLAN IS REVIVED 

The influence of Washington made the L’Enfant plan a reality at once in 
important respects and then for close to a century its development languished. But 
upon the celebration of- the one hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the 
seat of government in the District of Columbia, President McKinley brought about 
a revival of interest in the plan and the McMillan Commission followed. Senator 
McMillan, of my own State, at that time and for many years, played a highly 
creditable and influential part in the development of Washington — a part in which 
the able gentleman who presides to-night, Mr. Charles Moore, shared largely, as he 
was then at the Senator’s side. The resultant plan of 1901 recommended a return 
to the L’Enfant plan of a century before, with such extension of it as might be 
required to meet modem conditions and the city’s growth. And the L’Enfant plan 
began again to come into its own. 

In 1910 Congress created the Fine Arts Commission and considerably later the 
Zoning Commission and the National Capital Park and Planning Commission. 
Nothing is more imperative now from a legislative point of view with reference to the 
architecture of Washington than the grant of much greater authority to regulate the 
character, height, use, and location of private structures conspicuously located 
especially adjacent to, or in the vicinity of, public parks and public buildings of the 
District or Federal Governments. Why should the Nation plan and create and 
then permit the individual, through heedlessness or through selfishness or greed, to 
negative the national effort and conflict with the common good? The national 
purpose should be really dominant. 


-i 82 b 


ADDRESS OF LOUIS C. CRAM TON 


As one looks back one can clearly see a constant acceleration of movement toward 
the fullest possible realization of the L’Enfant plan since the McMillan report. A 
great deal has been accomplished in the past score of years. We are now on the 
threshold of glorious things. 

ON THE THRESHOLD OF GLORIOUS THINGS 

Measured in money, the figures are quite astounding, even in this day, when the 
common talk of billions make millions seem commonplace. Much has recently been 
completed of great importance—the development of East Potomac Park, the Arling¬ 
ton Memorial and Amphitheater, the Lincoln Memorial, are preeminent among 
numerous great gains now accomplished. We have now under construction or 
authorized for early construction the following highly important and desirable 
improvements at the sole expense of the Federal Government, and this list is not at 
all complete: 


Botanical Gardens. $820,000 

National Arboretum. 300,000 

Congressional Library, additional site. 600,000 

Walter Reed Hospital buildings. 1,012,000 

New Army air field. 1,010,000 

Government Printing Office. 1,250,000 

Restoration Arlington Mansion. 160,000 

Completion Tomb Unknown Soldier at Arlington. 400,000 

Arlington Memorial Bridge. 14,750,000 

Mount Vernon Memorial Highway. 4,500,000 

Addition House Office Building. 8,400,000 

Enlargement of Capitol Grounds. 6,244,472 

Supreme Court site and building. 7,500,000 

Triangle land. 25,000,000 

Department of Agriculture buildings. 8,100,000 

Archives Building. 8,700,000 

Department of Commerce Building. 17,500,000 

Internal Revenue Building. 10,000,000 

Total. 116,246,472 


$265,000,000 FOR NATIONAL CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS 

That total includes only projects, permanent improvements, many of great 
interest, now under construction or now authorized, and paid for by the Nation. 
But it does not include all of the proposed triangle program of Federal buildings, to 
which program this administration and the Congress are in effect fully committed 
and for which authorizations and appropriations are very sure to follow as rapidly 


■i 83>~ 






















DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


as construction is feasible. In his address in this hall last night Senator Smoot 
(and no one is better qualified to speak with authority on this) named $200,000,000 
as the amount necessary to complete the present triangle building program. 
Accepting that figure, and including the full triangle program in my tabulation 
of expenditures now under way and committed, the total is above $265,000,000. 
Possibly L’Enfant never dreamed there would be that much money in this Nation; 
in his day thinly scattered along a seaboard, only six million of them, citizens of 
several contending and jealous States, jealous of each other, but above all jealous of 
increase of power in the Federal Government. That people have swept across a 
continent and beyond, have become a hundred and twenty million, with forty-eight 
strong and prosperous States, and a respected and trusted Federal Government, 
which now is spending its money by the hundreds of millions in the improvement 
and beautification of the National Capital. And while they could not have dreamed 
our progress, Washington and L’Enfant planned for the expenditure of this money. 
And it is sometimes suggested that the Federal Government lacks in generosity in 
expenditures for the improvement of the Capital City. 

VISUALIZE THE PENDING CHANGES 

We are on the threshold of glorious things, we are in the midst of their accomplish¬ 
ment. The realization of them should, indeed, stimulate our pride of country, 
stimulate and elevate our thought. Let us visualize the physical change in the city. 
South of the Capitol a new unit will match the present House Office Building, to the 
east the new Supreme Court building will rise, adjacent to the Congressional Library. 
To the north the Capitol Grounds will extend to the Columbus Memorial and the 
Union Station. A boulevard will extend from the Union Station to B Street NW. 
and along B Street to the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and on to Arlington or to 
Mount Vernon. This boulevard and the new municipal center to be erected by the 
District government will clear away from the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue 
from the Capitol to Sixth Street the cheap lodging houses, the questionable resorts, 
the Chinese emporium, and the tattooing places which now give that conspicuous 
area a character of its own, better to be remembered than endured. 

The Union Square and the Mall come into their own; the Grant Memorial may 
be better appreciated; the Botanical Garden is removed and will blossom more 
gloriously elsewhere; the World War temporary shacks, which have so long outstayed 
their welcome, will vanish; the Agricultural Building steps back to the proper align¬ 
ment and becomes an architectural asset instead of a liability. For the north 
boundary of the Mall the L’Enfant vision of stately public buildings properly land¬ 
scaped will succeed the present strange mixture of the useful and the tolerated in 


~* 84 *- 


ADDRESS OF LOUIS C. CRAM TON 


commercial architecture which now reduce this heart center of the Capital to 
the level of hundreds of other cities properly unsung. From the White House to the 
Capitol, the south side of historic Pennsylvania Avenue, where have traveled these 
many years great democracy’s chosen leaders and loved heroes, will be the imposing 
Federal buildings of the Triangle program, not competing with each other and 
swearing at each other in varying forms of architecture, but each contributing to a 
beautiful whole that will add something to the world’s architecture. As L’Enfant 
and Washington would have it, the Capital City will then present to the world a 
clean face with beautiful features, and gone will be all the marks of tattooing, the 
stains of chop suey, and the plague of room-rent signs. 

PRESERVATION OF NATURE’S CHARMS MUST ACCOMPANY MAN’S IMPROVEMENTS 

There are thousands of our citizens, remote from the Capital, hoping not at all 
that they may ever see its beauties in the real but echoing in their hearts the same 
desire that President Coolidge expressed in his last annual message to Congress 
when he said: “If our country wishes to compete with others, let it not be in the 
support of armaments but in the making of a beautiful Capital City. Let it express 
the soul of America.” 

They want it to be the most beautiful city, combining in perfection the man¬ 
made wonders with the natural charms which came from the Creator. It must not 
be all a man-made city, for as such it rises not to its highest level. 

Washington located the new Capital in the midst of lavish display of beauties 
of God’s handiwork. At the head of navigation of the great Potomac, in the midst 
of wooded hills, its many valleys carrying creeks that enliven the landscape. While 
we make a reality of the dreams of L’Enfant in carrying forward man-made beauties, 
we must not permit the beautiful scenic realities of Washington’s time to become 
only mourned memories. Washington must have loved the Potomac as it flowed 
past his home and his great estate, must have been thrilled by Great Falls, where he 
went so often, must have loved the hills and streams surrounding the site he chose 
for his country’s Capital, or he would not have so chosen. Just as he inspired the 
L’Enfant plan of development we now promote, he would have preserved those 
beauties. 

It is wonderful we are proceeding now so rapidly and so wisely with our archi¬ 
tectural development, but delay in this has not been fatal. What was not done fifty 
years ago may be done now, and the error of fifty years ago may now be corrected. 
I like to cherish the hope that even the highly individualistic State, War, and Navy 
Departments Building may yet come out of its architectural cocoon and take on a 
beauty of exterior that will harmonize with the beauty of its neighbors. 


"* 85 *~ 


DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITAL 


That which man made man may replace and when he will. But the beauties of 
nature man can not restore when once destroyed. Those woods which Washington 
loved are disappearing; those charming ravines are being leveled; those splendid 
palisades of the Potomac are daily scenes of blasting that rob them of primeval 
beauty. 

The preservation of all this has had much of thought by our leaders, has been the 
subject of wise planning, but the plans have been disastrously slow in realization. 
The beauty is passing and can not be restored. 

DISASTROUS DELAY IN PARK AND PLAYGROUNDS PLAN 

Through the legislation of 1924 and 1926 the National Capital Park and Planning 
Commission came into being with remarkably able personnel, all characterized by 
high zeal and great ability. Two years ago they completed a plan of lands in the 
District and its environs which should be purchased for park, parkway, and play¬ 
ground purposes of the National Capital, this program being estimated then to cost 
$15,750,000 if promptly carried out. Under the act creating the commission the 
cost of such purchases is to be borne as other expenses of the District, the Federal 
Government contributing a lump sum or a percentage, as the case may be. As 
$6,000,000 of the amount named is for playgrounds, and the other areas are of great 
traffic use or recreational use to the people of the District, and as the Federal Gov¬ 
ernment has under way the expenditure of over $265,000,000, that act of Congress 
was not unfair as to lands in the District. But under that authority only $600,000 
to $1,000,000 has been spent annually for such purchases. Those lands are increasing 
in value at least 10 per cent per year. Will some Einstein tell us, if the Planning 
Commission program goes up in cost $1,500,000 a year and they can only spend 
$1,000,000, as will be the case next year, how long will it take to buy the lands they 
want? And in the meantime the ax, the steam shovel, the dynamite are destroying 
much that Washington would have preserved and no one can restore. 

In the report of the Senate District Committee on the bill to create the commission 
that committee declared a very urgent need to be the establishment of the “Fort 
Boulevard following the hills encircling the city and connecting the Civil War forts,” 
many of which are still well preserved. The development of the city makes this now 
difficult. If action is not soon taken, it will be impossible. Encroachment on the 
sources of the Rock Creek in Maryland threatens the very existence of that stream, 
the golden thread that binds together the beauty of our greatest park. The valleys 
tributary of Rock Creek, the Anacostia, the Potomac, the very Palisades, are in 
process of destruction or are in peril. 


86 




ADDRESS OF LOUIS C. CRAM TON 

LEGISLATION PENDING WOULD SAVE SCENIC CHARMS 

With gratifying unanimity the people of the District, as well as of the Nation, 
are indorsing legislation now pending which proposes to relieve the District from 
share in such purchases outside the District and to advance from the Federal Treasury 
for such purchases money without interest sufficient for the prompt purchase of all 
the needed lands. Passage of this legislation will insure proper playground develop¬ 
ment in the District for our children, instead of waiting for their grandchildren, will 
save $30,000,000, will preserve the scenic beauties of the Capital and its environs. 
It will give us the George Washington memorial parkway, controlling both banks of 
the Potomac from Mount Vernon to Great Falls. That legislation is the next step 
needed in congressional authorization, and it is not to be doubted it soon will follow. 

Land taken for public use under a wise policy of park and playground expansion 
does not injuriously affect the assessment rolls by its removal from taxation. Assessor 
Richards recently stated in House hearings that increased valuations adjacent would 
equalize the situation and that the money paid for such lands would seldom leave 
the District but would instead be used in desirable development elsewhere in the 
District. For instance, the money the Government paid for the square on which 
was built the Senate Office Building was used to develop six squares of desirable 
residences in Mount Pleasant. 

A GLORIOUS FUTURE THROUGH FAITHFULNESS TO THE IDEALS OF THE FATHERS 

It is fine that as the Nation has grown stronger in numbers, in territory, in prestige, 
in influence, we still draw our inspiration from the founders. It is eloquent tribute 
to their kindred wisdom and common Americanism that Coolidge, Hoover, and Mellon 
carry on in the realization of the dreams and plans of Washington, Jefferson, and 
L’Enfant—that we prepare for a more glorious future through our faithfulness to 
the ideals of the fathers. 


-i 87 >••• 






Airplane View of the Potomac River from Over Great Falls 









Airplane View of the Arlington Amphitheater and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 




i 90 b 


Airplane View op Mount Vernon from Over the Potomac River 
















-i 91 > 





Fort Drive Connecting the Civil War Forts Encircling Washington 
































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Study of Central Area by National Capital Park and Planning Commission, Showing Projects 
Approved in 1928 and Possible Ultimate Development 






















































